Mark Maher, who founded Cutting Edge Selections out of the back of a van 25 years ago and grew the Mariemont company into one of the largest importers and distributors of fine wine in Ohio and Kentucky, died Jan. 1 of complications from a fall.

A longtime resident of Hyde Park who had recently moved to Over-the-Rhine, he was 57.

Maher hit his head after falling about 4 feet while walking downhill in Covington. He had just left a Dec. 28 viewing party of the Monday Night Football game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Denver Broncos.

Maher was walking to his car with a group of friends when the accident happened, and one of the first to reach him was acclaimed chef Jean-Robert de Cavel. Maher was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, but his condition didn’t improve.

Cutting Edge Selections has about 1,000 customers, including upscale restaurants such as de Cavel’s flagship downtown eatery Jean-Robert's Table, Orchids at Palm Court in the Netherland Plaza hotel, and all of Jeff Ruby’s steakhouses along with Jungle Jim’s International Market and Hyde Park Gourmet Food & Wine.

Stephen Maher, who joined his older brother at Cutting Edge Selections in 2001 and had been vice president, succeeds him as chief executive.

“It’s been complete and utter shock,” Stephen Maher said. “Most of the employees, especially those throughout the sales side, considered him a mentor. There have been former employees who have gone on to be presidents of other wine distributors in Ohio.”

The company has 45 employees, a satellite office in Covington and warehouses in Mariemont and Cleveland.

“There are some excellent employees at Cutting Edge,” Stephen Maher said. “We think we’ll be able to assume (Mark Maher’s duties) and just work a little harder. Working beside him is how I learned about the wine industry, and I got an education in how to treat other people. What Mark is most known for is his generosity toward others. He developed extremely strong relationships.”

Cutting Edge is the fourth- or fifth-largest wine distributor in the region, Stephen Maher said. The company sells domestic and imported wine to restaurants and wine shops throughout Ohio and Kentucky.

Mark Anthony Maher III was born Aug. 14, 1958, at Good Samaritan Hospital in University Heights. He was the son of Mark Maher Jr., a financial adviser, and Jane Elizabeth Weil Maher, a nurse who founded a Montessori school. A 1976 graduate of St. Xavier High School in Finneytown, he attended the University of Dayton.

As a student at UD, Maher got interested in the restaurant and hospitality business while working at the Pine Club steakhouse in Dayton. After college, he worked at Tante Louise, a defunct French restaurant in Denver that Stephen Maher said once rivaled Cincinnati’s now-closed Maisonette in terms of fine dining.

Mark Maher was managing partner of another Colorado restaurant, the Inn at Glenhaven near Fort Collins. He filled in behind the stove when the chef there took ill. He also worked in wine sales in Denver and as a sommelier on cruise ships before returning to Cincinnati to launch his own business in 1991.

“He started out as a one-man show,” Stephen Maher said. “It was him and a van driving throughout Cincinnati but also going up to Columbus, Dayton and Cleveland. He would take the orders one day and deliver them the next. Slowly the company evolved. He filled a void.”

Originally based in Fairfax, the privately held firm expanded to neighboring Mariemont in 2007. A satellite Cutting Edge office was opened in Northern Kentucky in 2004.

“Mark was instrumental in integrating Spanish wine into the region,” Stephen Maher said. “That’s one of the things he’ll be most remembered for. He also was a forerunner in getting into Oregon wines. I wouldn’t say he had a single favorite wine, but you would usually see him drinking a Tempranillo from Spain or a Pinot Noir from Oregon or Burgundy.

“He considered many of the friends he developed here in the wine business and restaurant areas as his family,” Stephen Maher said. “He felt that wine was meant for sharing, and that was special to him – the ability to share with the people he met and just become part of their lives.”

The brothers shared a house in Hyde Park until Mark Maher decided to buy a condo in the resurgent Over-the-Rhine neighborhood.

“He just felt that was the direction of what was going on in Cincinnati as far as the culture,” Stephen Maher said. “It was the place to be as far as being around people and being involved in the growth of Cincinnati.”

A visitation will be held 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in the banquet and conference space inside the Cintas Center at Xavier University, 1624 Herald Ave. in Evanston. A memorial service will follow, which will be led by Mark Maher's brother Richard Maher, a Christian missionary based in the Ukraine. Burial will be private at St. Mary's Cemetery in St. Bernard.

Memorial donations can be sent to the Mark Maher Memorial Fund for Midwest Culinary Institute students, care of the Cincinnati State Foundation, 3520 Central Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45223. Donations also can be made online by clicking here.